


Dandle Pedal Moil Coddle

by Jalules



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cuddling, Established Relationship, Ficlet, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 02:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jalules/pseuds/Jalules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cuddling Karkat takes some getting used to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dandle Pedal Moil Coddle

.

.

 

Cuddling Karkat takes some getting used to.

He’s sort of compact, easy to hold onto, but there’s so many sharp edges to him that it’s a struggle. The first few times he goes in for a hug, a kiss, John inevitably hurts himself.

An elbow to the side has him wheezing, a horn to the jaw leaves a bruise.

He doesn’t know how to handle a troll boyfriend with fangs and nubs.

He doesn’t know how anyone would handle anything more than just nubs.

But over time, John learns the proper ways to hold an angry, emotional, oh so secretly touchy feely troll. He figures out which direction to tip his head so he won’t put an eye out, rearranges his arms till he finds a collection of hugging positions that work just right. He discovers all the not-so-dangerous parts that Karkat doesn’t want him to know about.

Like that he’s got a soft underbelly, with sensitive little bumps along his sides where some freaky bug legs used to be, and he shivers when John strokes them.

“Good shiver, or bad shiver?” He asks, running his fingertips up Karkat’s sides, watching him shake slightly, squirm and reach his arms up further over his head, shirtless after twenty minutes of poking and prompting to take his stupid doofy sweater off, (why would anyone want to see that, it’s not much to look at, he doesn’t even understand why his body is so disgustingly interesting to John at all but okay, fine,) flattened out over their mattress.

“…I don’t know,” he admits, shudders again, silently, “But it doesn’t really matter. Keep doing it.”

So they sprawl on the bed and John keeps doing it.

 

The palms of Karkat’s hands are softer than most of his skin, calloused in spots for sure, but overall, strangely smooth. When John touches them, feather light, barely there, his fingers all twitch in at once, oversensitive and grabbing at nothing.

They huddle together on a piano bench and John thinks maybe Karkat’s fingers are too stubby to play piano really well, but that they’re sort of perfect in their own way, perfect for other things.

He drags the tips of one of his own longer, thinner digits up and over each of the troll’s fingers, watches them twitch, watches deep black pupils follow the path he takes.

He slides their hands together like puzzle pieces that click and lock and for a moment neither wants to let go.

“Quit fucking around and show me how you do that thing with the pedals,” Karkat says.

So John lets go of his hand and shows him how to do the thing with the pedals.

 

Karkat’s back gets tied up in knots. John realizes that it’s not so much a troll thing, or even a body thing, as it is a mental thing.

To call him tense would be an understatement. His muscles work themselves into a worse and worse state with every night he spends hunched over his husktop, tapping away at his keyboard, growling to himself when people won’t listen to him.

He curls up in a ball in the corner of the room in a pile of things, just odd things, with the worst possible posture, and wonders aloud why anyone listens to him.

He drives himself crazy with worry and doubt and the knotted muscle spreads through him like a virus, climbs up his back and into his neck. It’s stiff, sore, and when he complains that he can’t turn his fucking head without wanting to rip his skin off and throw himself into a gaping, active volcano of misery, John climbs into the pile with him and rubs his shoulders.

Karkat unwinds.

He works his fingers into the aching mess that is the other’s musculature, massages the pain away, and as he kneads Karkat’s neck gently, slides his hands down and over unfamiliar tissue contained by skin that he’s become pretty well acquainted with, he hums under his breath.

He turns Karkat pliant in his lap, makes him moan with abandon in a way that is so unexpected it makes him laugh out loud, leaves them both warm and comfortable and calm.

He helps Karkat to relax, and when he’s sure he’s worked all the kinks out of his boyfriendy matesprit loverthing’s back, he lets him squirm away and rearrange himself.

They cuddle up in Karkat’s strange troll pile and it’s easier now that it’s the three hundredth or so time.

Karkat tells John how much he pities him.

So John tells Karkat how much he loves him.

And it’s almost unfair that for all the time it’s taken for John to find Karkat’s soft spots, the troll can do the same to him without a second thought.

A natural born predator, Karkat searches out his weaknesses. He presses his forehead to John’s, kisses his cheek, and it makes his human heart pound.

He huddles into John’s neck, fills the space between head and shoulder, clings to him. He moves John’s hand to rest on top of his head, just between his horns, trusting his matesprit to protect him, not to hurt him, and mutters grudging endearments against his collarbone.

Because when it comes down to it, John is easy to cuddle. He’s just a soft, squishy human with no natural defenses. His whole body is a not-dangerous part, with his silly, love struck heart the worst offender.

Karkat presses a kiss to the base of his neck and John breathes a contented sigh.

He asks Karkat to do that again, softer.

So Karkat kisses him again, and again, softer and softer and softer.


End file.
